Category Archives: Daring Cooks

Rachael of pizzarossa was our August 2012 Daring Cook hostess and she challenged us to broaden our knowledge of cornmeal! Rachael provided us with some amazing recipes and encouraged us to hunt down other cornmeal recipes that we’d never tried before – opening our eyes to literally 100s of cuisines and 1000s of new-to-us recipes!

My friends Julie and Andrew just traveled to New Zealand a few days ago and I am incredibly envious. In fact, they’re spending the next nine months Down Underer while renting out their Texas home, so I offered to borrow various items from their kitchen in the meantime. Always thinking of my friends.

Having never shared a roof with a waffle iron, I obviously had to put some cornmeal in it in order to kill two birds: my desire to make some waffles (of course) and this challenge. Do you know how many cornbread waffles on the internet are covered in chili? This is so freaking brilliant that it’s disappointing to have never heard of it, but even more so that it wasn’t my idea. While tempting, August is just not the time for chili in Texas.

I knew I wanted something savory featuring cheese and chiles since that’s my favorite kind of cornbread. Then I remembered a post by Joy the Baker in which she made savory cornmeal waffles and served them with a fried egg. Excellent! (pun avoided) Continue reading →

Manu from Manu’s Menu was our Daring Cooks lovely June hostess and has challenged us to make traditional Italian cannelloni from scratch! We were taught how to make the pasta, filling, and sauces shared with us from her own and her family’s treasured recipes!

I recently learned about the ulnar nerve, or rather what it was called. The rolling out of fresh pasta dough with my French rolling pin are what led to my enlightenment. After about 30 minutes of trying to roll the life out of the dough get the dough thin enough, I noticed that the outer edge of my right palm and pinky had gone numb! In response to my tweet about this, Victoria said it was the ulnar nerve: Point of Enlightenment. 25 out of my 30 years have been spent making music with my hands and I was unaware of this term. Now which makes you smarter, cooking or music?

The Daring Cooks’ February 2012 challenge was hosted by Audax & Lis and they chose to present Patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness! We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties!

You could maybe say that I’m on an uncommitted search for the best veggie burger. So far the winner is the Garden Bean Burger at La Tuna Grill in San Antonio. They make it with refried black beans and then top it with cheddar, guacamole, roasted salsa, and tomatoes. Sounds kind of like a chalupa on a bun, right?

Naturally this challenge gave me the impetus to try to make my own black bean burgers in hopes that they’d be half as good as the ones at La Tuna. Having never made a veggie burger before (what?!), I looked up recipes and found one that used refried black beans…but by “refried”, they mean “smashed”. Probably most bean burger recipes involve smashing…

Maranda of Jolts & Jollies was our January 2012 Daring Cooks hostess with the mostess! Maranda challenged us to make traditional Mexican Tamales as our first challenge of the year!

Having been born and raised in San Antonio, I can assure you that I have eaten a fair share of tamales! Often my family has them on Christmas Eve, which is a very popular tradition down here. Every grocery store has corn husks in the produce section, and some even sell giant tamaleras for steaming huge batches of tamales. You might therefore assume that I’ve made tamales before, but nope…this is why they’re on my list!

Traditional tamales are meat-filled and usually have lard in the masa so I haven’t had so many in the past couple years due to the vegetarian kinds being less common. All the more reason to make my own! Maranda provided a vegan black bean recipe which sounded tasty, but I decided to go an easier route and fill mine with monterrey jack, hatch green chiles, and cumin.

I’ve always heard about how difficult, or maybe rather time-consuming, it is to make homemade tamales, but never really knew why. It’s a tradition for many families to get together and make large quantities for Christmas, so I guess making copious amounts of anything can become tedious. Since the husks need to be soaked a few hours, there is a little planning ahead, but after that, you make the filling, masa dough, and then assemble and steam.

Sarah from Simply Cooked was our November Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique! We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

Cooking with tea? Interesting…though I almost didn’t do this challenge. The vegetarian recipe provided sounded good, but potentially bland. I did it though, and my instincts were correct, to me at least.

The October Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood. They challenged us to bring a taste of the East into our home kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce.

Okay, I’m days late with this challenge, but wanted to complete it because 1) I’ve missed a couple of recent ones, and 2) I can’t pass up Asian recipes. I’m glad I did it because it is SO good!!!

Traditionally moo shu is made with pork, so being vegetarian, I went with a different stir fry recipe than what was provided for the challenge. Otherwise, I used the hoisin and pancake recipes from Shelley and Ruth!

This is an easy dinner to make, but the prep can be pretty time-consuming. If you chop the veggies and make the sauce the day before you want to eat it, I would approve of that (it’s what I did)! The pancakes are a little high-maintenance as most doughy things can be, but aren’t complicated. Continue reading →

Due to being away since June, I’ve sadly missed out on a few Daring Kitchen challenges this summer, but was able to do this month’s Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Luckily for me, the friends I’m staying with have appetites for every cuisine along with a well-equipped kitchen that I could use.

Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.

Everything about this challenge was totally new to me because I’ve had Indian food, but not South Indian/Sri Lankan. I spent Saturday afternoon driving around Cleveland trying to find the ingredients, and more or less succeeded!

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

Isn’t this kind of like when they announce something like, I don’t know, potatoes as the secret ingredient for Iron Chef? That was my reaction, anyway. At the same time though, it’s kind of fun to be given free reign for these challenges (I’m looking at you, April). Continue reading →

What’s this? Another New Orleans recipe in one week? This one comes in the form of a Daring Cooks’ Challenge!

Our May hostess, Denise, of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need, from creole spices, homemade stock, and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

Gumbo! Growing up in Texas, I think it’s hard not to try gumbo at some point, but maybe that’s more the case if your dad is a gumbo fanatic. I always thought it was pretty good, but had never mustered up enough ambition to make it. But then in true Daring Kitchen form, a recipe just like gumbo (ambitious?) is perfect for a challenge! Continue reading →

(Is it a food blogger faux pas to have the same very obvious plate two posts in a row?)

Renata of Testado, Provado & Aprovado! was our Daring Cooks’ April 2011 hostess. Renata challenged us to think “outside the plate” and create our own edible containers! Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 17th to May 16th at http://thedaringkitchen.com! (Note: this entry isn’t eligible, but go vote for others!)

I am totally late posting this! It feels super lame to make excuses, but I have a few… I was having trouble coming up with ideas for this challenge even though I have some for the sweet challenge. Then earlier this week, I thought of something after being inspired by the first few pages in the DC forum. Being the procrastinator that I am, I was planning to do the challenge on the 13th, then post on the 14th. (typical…) The problem with this was that I thought the 14th was on Saturday for no apparent reason, and didn’t realize this until Thursday….the 14th. Gah! Continue reading →